Spring classes 2024

The Adult Christian Education classes are designed for Biblical Discipleship.  Part of this discipleship happens through intentional teaching and meaningful membership - "the commitment Christians make to keep one another accountable for regularly gathering and centering their lives together on the Gospel." (Alex Duke, Crossway Link)

The four-chair model is an illustration used to show what active membership/Biblical discipleship involves.

In this model, the chairs do not represent places of rest and inactivity.  Each chair represents a stage in the growth process.  There is a movement to the right. 
Members of Trinity need to be evangelizing, sharing the Gospel, at their places of work, at their schools, with their neighbors, and in their families.  The message of the Gospel will be preached at church services and it can be shared in so many different places.

The goal of ACE is to provide the education and training needed to establish, edify, and equip believers to never become too comfortable with where they are right now.  

Our Sunday morning classes help Christ-followers move along the Establish - Edify - Equip process.  We know that throughout our lives we need to be continually established, edified, and equipped.  

• Classes that ENGAGE God’s FOUNDATION are designed to establish believers in the basics of the Christian faith and Trinity life.
• Classes that ENGAGE God's WORD are designed to edify believers who desire to know the Bible better.
• Classes that ENGAGE God's WORLD are designed to edify believers who desire to know how God's Word connects to our lives and the world at large.
• Classes that ENGAGE God's WORK are designed to equip believers who are ready to invest and help others grow spiritually.

(This description of the ACE classes at Trinity was originally posted February 2023)

The classes offered each quarter are intentionally meant to grow disciples and make more disciples. With this intentionality in mind, some classes are REPEATED more often.  This quarter's Stewardship and Missions/Evangelism are repeated because the topic is part of Trinity's heartbeat and we want each of us to grow in these areas.

In joining a class, you are taking a step toward growing spiritually and connecting with other believers.  

With that general description of the ACE classes, here are the three classes offered this spring.

Stewardship (Engaging God’s Work) - Fireplace Room Stewardship is taking responsibility for the things the Lord has entrusted to us. Being faithful with the time, money, and other gifts God has given us.  This will examine how to be faithful in these things.  We pray this class will help you glorify God in using His gifts.

Song of Solomon (Engaging God's Word) - Chapel
This course is an introduction to studying Wisdom Literature in the Old Testament. It is for believers in all walks of life: single, married, with kids, or without kids. We will discuss the importance of how this text points us to God while giving us a foundation for thinking about marriage.

Go Tell It (Engaging God's World) - ACE Room #3

Missions and Evangelism are not programs, classes, committees, or merely parts of a church. Proclaiming the Gospel HERE and THERE should be in the culture of the church and in the heart and life of every member of Trinity. This class will focus on the principles and practices of Missions and Evangelism. The second part of the class will have two options: How to Share the Gospel and What It Means to Be Sure of Your Salvation.

Grieve?

 Q8  Do You Still Grieve Over Sin?

“The closer you get to Jesus, the more you will hate sin, for nothing is more unlike Christ than sin.”

What is Paul saying in 1 Timothy 1:15?

“It is not the absence of sin but the grieving over it which distinguishes the child of God from empty professors [of faith].”

What does the mean for our testimony in this lost, sinful world?

“Excessive introspection is itself a sinful possibility.  But the spirit of the age certainly doesn’t incline us to go to extremes in brooding over our sin.”

What does this mean?

“Christians are lifelong repenters and lifelong believers.”

Why is this true?

Passage to consider:  2 Corinthians 7:8-11

What should I do if I do not grieve over sin?

Make sure you understand the gospel of the New Testament.

Ask God to show you the reality of your sins.

Pray slowly through Psalm 51

Meditate on the fact that your sin nailed the holy, sinless One from heaven to the cross.

Preach the gospel to yourself every day.

tinyurl.com/tbctenquestions

 

Disciplines?

This week's question is, "Are the Spiritual Disciplines Increasingly Important to You?"

The Christian Spiritual Disciplines are the God-ordained means found in Scripture by which we bring ourselves before God, experience Him, and are changed into Christlikeness.

Spiritual Disciplines are personal and interpersonal.

Spiritual Disciplines are biblical.

Spiritual Disciplines are sufficient.

The Spirit of God works through each of these disciplines in unique ways.

The Spiritual Disciplines are practices, not attitudes.

The Spiritual Disciplines are derived from the gospel, not divorced from it. Every Spiritual Discipline is meant to take us deeper into the gospel's glories.

The Spiritual Disciplines are the means to godliness, not the ultimate definition.  1st Timothy 4:7.

You will not think of the disciplines as mere duties or simply as Christlike patterns to follow but rather as ways to experience life and light from heaven to your soul.

The Spiritual Disciplines are not the marks of Christlikeness as much as they are the means to it.

Devote yourself more to pursuing Christlikeness and enjoying God through Spiritual Disciplines than to achieving efficiency and completing to-do lists.

Resist the temptation to believe in microwave spirituality or short-cut Christlikeness.

Stoke your spiritual life with at least one perceptible poke.

Delight?

This week's question is, "Do You Delight In the Bride of Jesus Christ?" 

From The Gospel Primer - 12. My Inheritance in the Saints 

The gospel is not just a message of reconciliation with God but also heralds all believers' reconciliation with one another in Christ. Through the death of Christ, God has brought peace where there was once hostility, and He has  broken down the racial, economic, and social barriers that once divided us outside of Christ (Ephesians 2:14-16;        Colossians 3:11; 3:28; Revelation 5:9) 

Also, when God saved us, He made us members of His household (Ephesians 2:19). He gave us as gifts to one another (Ephesians 1:8).  Each brother and sister is a portion of my gospel inheritance from God. I am a portion of their inheritance as well. We are significant players in each other’s gospel narrative, and it is in relationship with one another that we experience the fullness of God in Christ (Ephesians 3:17-19; 2 Timothy 2:22; 1 Peter 4:10; Ephesians 1:22, 23).

Hence, the more I comprehend the full scope of the gospel, the more I value the church for which Christ died (Ephesians 5:25), the more I value the role that I play in the lives of my fellow Christians, and the more I appreciate the role that they must be allowed to play in mine.

“One of the best tests of whether we belong to Christ is whether we delight in His delight, namely, the people who comprise His church.”

“Saints aren’t just the exceptionally devoted believers now in heaven; they are also the people who believe and live the Word of God in their workaday world on Earth.” 

“Delighting in ‘the saints in the land’ means finding irresistible joy in the presence and the ministry of Christ’s people, both in their      congregational form and as individuals.”

“Here are two of many possible suggestions for expressing this delight.”

1. “Grow to see the bride of Christ and her work more as Jesus does.”
2. ”Demonstrate your delight in the bride of Christ in ways that will make a real difference.”

 

Concern?

Question 5:  Do you have a growing concern for the spiritual and temporal needs of others?

This week's question, at this time, is fundamental.  "Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words" is a quote that is very popular and not true.  Words must be used to preach the Gospel.  At the same time, those who have been saved and changed by the Gospel will desire to help those who have temporals.  "Those following Jesus can trace their progress in His likeness by tracking their growth in their concern for both the spiritual and temporal needs of others." (68)

It is not either word, Spiritual truth - the Gospel OR Temporal actions - Love and Caring for physical needs.  When someone hears and responds to the truth of John 3:16, they will live out the truth of First John 3:16.

Jesus' earthly ministry included teaching spiritual truths, meeting physical needs (healing and providing food), and dying as the perfect lamb of God for God's glory and our good.  

James 2:15 - 16 reminds us of how we should respond to physical needs.  "If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,' yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?"

10 Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health lists people through history who spoke truth and demonstrated love to others.

• George Whitefield was a fruitful evangelist who started an orphanage.
• William Wilberforce fought to end slavery.
• William Carey worked against child sacrifice and widow burning in India.
• George Mueller prayed and helped orphans.
• "C.H. Spurgeon, remembered as the Prince of Preachers, built more than seventeen homes for elderly widows, two orphanages." (74)

Whitney gives three things to help you grow in your concern for the needs of others.

1. Go to the Great Ophthalmologists.
2. Look for the hurt in every heart and home
3. Do something for the gospel and the good of others

I would like to add a fourth.  Remember how needy you were before you were a child of God.  

The last paragraph of this chapter serves as a great reminder.

Don't sit passively until you "feel led" to particular needs.  Go adventurously into your world with the gospel and the love of Christ, and you'll find Him guiding you to the needs He wants you to meet.  And as you become His instrument in meeting the needs of others, you'll find Him meeting many needs of your own.  (78)

Sensitive?

This week's lesson has yet to happen in person.

"Are You More Sensitive to God's Presence?"

You may have had a unique God experience at camp, during a quiet alone time, in a Sunday service, looking at a baby, reading a book, or so many other times.

"But how often are you aware of the presence of God?  If we take the teaching of the Bible seriously, perception of God should not be an occasional experience." (pg. 52)

Continual awareness of God's presence helps with growing in the spiritual disciplines, fighting besetting sin, and depending on God more and more.

The presence of God is made known in so many different ways.  Through the universal presence of God, his omnipresence is that God is everywhere but is not everything.  The Christological presence of God is the fact that Jesus is God.  God is present in the believer through the indwelling presence of God.  In sermons and specific work on earth, the perceptible presence of God is known.  God's heavenly presence is what heaven is all about.  People often focus on the streets of gold, the "mansion," and seeing loved ones.  But the new heaven and new earth will be about God.  The eternal presence of God will be known through love and mercy OR divine wrath and justice.

We need to seek God "through His Word; or through experiences which are founded on His Word (such as biblical worship); or through daily life in ways that are informed by His Word (such as doing our work "as to the Lord," Ephesians 6:7)."  Knowing God's presence must go through His word not our emotions and experiences.  

We can grow through God's Desertions.

These desertions are not because God has left us but because we feel he has left us.

“If, while reading this chapter, you’ve thought, I haven’t been sensing God’s presence much lately, take note that it’s one thing to long for a sense of God’s presence while not experiencing it, and another to live routinely with no awareness of His absence.”

Some Practical Ways to Grow In Our Awareness of God’s Presence:

• Go often to where God has revealed Himself most clearly—the Bible.
• Acknowledge His presence with you by talking with Him.
• Seek Him in manifesting His presence, which is given only in congregational worship.
• Continually reaffirm the truth that He is omnipresent. God seems so far away.

Love?

More will be added after tomorrow's class.

According to Bloomberg, the middle of February is "Fall off the Wagon" Day.  This is the day when there is an uptick in fast food visits and a drop in weekly visits to the gym.  All too often, this same "Fall off the Wagon" trend occurs in the spiritual disciplines.  You start strong and committed but after some time, old habits, the busyness of life, and spiritual lethargy creep in.  There is a drop in Bible reading and an uptick in media consumption.  

10 Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health by Don Whitney contains some great questions to ask yourself throughout the year.  They will help you examine your spiritual life.

The first Spiritual Health class 2024 question is, "Are you more loving?"   For the other questions, go to tinyurl.com/tbctenquestions

There are at least two reasons why this is a great question to ask yourself.

The first reason is because love is a primary characteristic of a Christian and a command in God's Word.

• John 15:12: “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.
• John 15:17  This I command you, that you love one another.
• Romans 12:10: Be  devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another  in honor,
• 1 Corinthians 16:14: All that you do must be done in love.
• 1 John 3:16  By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.

“A Christian may advance in many areas, including the ability to witness, teach, or even preach, or biblical insight and knowledge, or faith, giving, and sacrifice, but these mean little without growth in the most important Christian distinctive—love (see 1 Corinthians 13:1—3).”

The second reason is because of the present culture.  When "love is love" is used as a slogan to promote sexual immorality, it is essential to know what true Biblical love is and how we should live in this world.

The chapter begins to offer an explanation of what love is using two questions.

What kind of love?

God-glorifying, supernatural love.

More than natural affection, that is, love shown in normal circumstances, such as a parent's love for their children or love for a good friend.

Not "Does it please me first?" love.  "Any benefits it brings to others are secondary to the question "Does it please me?"

Not "I'll love you if you'll love me" love.  "The test of Christlikeness is not the greatness of your love toward those who love you, but the bounty of your love toward those who do not."

What are some areas (not all) where love shows itself?

Love for other Christians.  This love strengthens believers.  Read Galatians 6:10. 

Love for the lost.  Read Mark 10:21 and Luke 6:27, 32.  

Love for your family.  Read Ephesians 5:25

The chapter concludes with suggestions for maturing in the most Christlike of graces - love:

• Meditate on love as the most important distinguishing mark
• Let your heart be often warmed by the fire of God’s love
• Discover assurance that God is your Father by loving as He loves
• Delight in Imitating God
• Identify those relationships where you most need to grow in love
• Take the initiative to show love, especially when you have little or no expectation of love in return.

Control?

Need to post this after the December 14th class.

Are You Governed Increasingly by God's Word?

Question 2 from
10 Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health by Don Whitney

Many people commit to a read-through of the Bible plan at the beginning of a new year.  I encourage you to read through the Bible, but do not read it merely to say you read it.
Read the Bible to know God, the Father, the Creator, and the Sustainer of the World.

Read the Bible to know God, the Son, the Savior of the saint's soul.

Read the Bible to know God, the Holy Spirit, our Helper and Intercessor.

Second Timothy 3:15 - 17 says Scripture gives us what we need for salvation and spiritual growth.   

A specific phrase in this question is crucial: "governed increasingly."  

This question implies that a healthy Christian is constantly growing. 
"So we speak of being governed by Scriptures as (1) a general characteristic of a true follower of Jesus, and yet (2) something which increasingly characterizes the growing Christian."

This growth does not come from us.  It comes through the Holy Spirit as we spend time in God's word.  

Whitney gives several suggestions to help go

1. Deepen Your Desire for God’s Word
• Read less, if necessary, to meditate more.
2. Make Time for God’s Word.
3. List five areas you have yet to consider from a Biblical perspective.  Here are some examples.
• Church: attendance, baptism, membership, serving in, giving to, learning in, praying with, fellowship, Lord's Supper, promoting unity
• Discipleship: meditation on Scripture, prayer, evangelism, missions, priorities/stewardship of time, fasting, silence and solitude, journaling, learning/ reading, legalism versus consistency
• Family: marriage, family crisis, unconverted family members, childlessness, dealing with aging parents, parenting children, parenting teenagers, divorce, sex, family worship
• Money: giving, saving, investing, controlling debt, contentment, budgeting, gambling, wasting, not loving it, simplifying with less
• Work: the amount of, purpose, travel, attitude, dependability, integrity, witness at, relationships with boss, coworkers, customers, suppliers), integration of faith, retirement
4. Train yourself to ask, “How does the Bible speak to this?”

tinyurl.com/tbctenquestions

Thrist?

 Question 1 is "Do You Thirst for God?" 

Psalm 42:1—2

As the deer pants for the water brooks,
So my soul pants for You, God.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God;
When shall I come and appear before God?

Three Kinds of Spiritual Thirst

There is the Thirst of the EMPTY Soul.  Augustine wrote, “You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you."  We were created to worship.  For many, this worship - thirst for God - is not a longing for God in the scripture but for a god in their own image.  John 4:14 states, "But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never be thirsty; but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up to eternal life.”  This EMPTY thirst is only truly satisfied in Jesus Christ.

Thirst of the DRY Soul is the Christian soul that knows what he is missing.  Whitney refers to three ways the Christian soul can be dry:  (1)  drinking too much from the "desiccating" fountains of the world, (2) perceived "God desertions," and (3) prolonged mental and/or physical fatigue. 

Finally, there is the Thirst of the SATISFIED Soul.  Philippians 3:7—11 and Psalm 34:8 refer to this thirst-inducing thirst.  

Whitney suggests three action steps to help satisfy this thirst for God. ways to 

• Meditate on the Bible.  This means more than just reading the Bible.  Meditating involves thinking about what the passage says.  
• Pray the Bible
• Read Thirst-making writers.
• The Valley of Vision by various Puritans
• Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan
• Gospel Primer by Milton Vincent
• Holiness by J.C. Ryle

 To go back to the initial post, click tinyurl.com/tbctenquestions

 

Ten Questions

"'Many religious people' are always morbidly craving fresh excitement, and they seem to care little what it is if they only get it." J.C. Ryle wrote this in 1879, and it is still very true today.  

This fall, I am teaching a class, 10 Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health (Hoopla - audio,  Hoopla -ebook). The ten questions came from Don Whitney's book by the same title.

Starting on December 10, we will look at one question a week. 

Question 1:  Do You Thirst for God?
Question 2:  Are you governed increasingly by God's Word?
Question 3:  Are you more loving?
Question 4:  Are you more sensitive to God's presence?

Each lesson is an independent lesson.  The class time will include scripture, thoughts about that week's question, prayer time, and heart-felt discussion

Here is the official class description;

In the distractions of daily life, it can be hard to evaluate how we are doing spiritually. But monitoring the pulse of your spiritual health is just as important as monitoring your mental and physical health. This class will focus on asking yourself 10 questions developed from Scripture and praying for one another.   

As part of the introduction this past Sunday, we did a couple of things.

First, we introduced the theme verses, John 11:25, 26. 

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; the one who believes in Me will live, even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”

The basic idea was we cannot talk about spiritual health unless we are spiritually alive in Christ. 

Second, we talked about what self-inquiry/self-examination is.  In his book Practical Theology, J.C. Ryle shares ten questions about self-inquiry.  For a free PDF copy of the book go to https://www.monergism.com/practical-religion-ebook

Here are the ten questions followed by five different groups of people who would benefit from asking these questions to themselves.

10 Questions About Self-Inquiry
From Practical Theology by J.C. Ryle

1. Do we ever think about our souls at all?
2. Do we ever do anything about our souls?
3. Are we trying to satisfy our consciences with a mere formal religion?
4. Have we received the forgiveness of our sins?
5. Do we know anything by experience of conversion to God?
6. Do we know anything of practical Christian holiness?
7. Do we know anything of enjoying the means of grace?
8. Do we ever try to do good in the world?
9. Do we know anything of living the life of habitual communion with Christ?
10. Do we know anything of being ready for Christ’s coming?

Consider these questions.

• Is any reader of this paper asleep and utterly thoughtless about religion?
• Is any reader of this paper feeling self-condemned, and that there is no hope for his soul?
• Is any reader of this paper a professing believer in Christ, but a believer without my joy and peace and comfort?
• Is there any reader of this paper a believer oppressed with doubts and fears, on account of his feebleness, infirmity, and sense of sin?
• Is any reader of this paper sometimes downcast by the trial he meets with in the way to heaven, bodily trials, family trials,  trials of circumstance, trials from neighbors, and trials from the world?

 

The Gathering of the Church WATC

For every We Are the Church post, click HERE.
For information about the Winter 2023/24 classes, starting December 3rd, click HERE.

God is to be worshiped the way God said we are to worship him.

Over the last ten weeks of this We Are the Church, we have looked at many different areas of the church.

•  Meaningful Membership:  
• Intentional Relationships:  
• Ministries of the Church:  
• Celebrating with the Church:  
• Prayer & the Church:  
• The Bible & the Church:  
• Preaching & the Church:  
• Leadership & the Church:  
• Discipline & the Church:  

The week's study, the Gathering of the Church, is probably the most thought about, misunderstood, and underestimated part of the church.

• Most thought about—When people think about the church, they usually think about the Sunday morning gathering—the people of God meeting at a specific location at a specific time. 
• Misunderstood -  As we have been learning, the church is much more than this.  The gathering of the church is a critical part of the church family. 
• Underestimated - People, even many church people, underestimate the importance of believers regularly gathering together with the purpose of worshipping

In this Gathering of the Church study, we will examine why this gathering time is essential.  The reason is one word: worship.

We gather together NOT for entertainment and NOT merely to learn.  We gather together to worship God.  

We glorify him through meaningful membership, intentional relationships, and all church ministries.

We do this by celebrating, praying, and learning God's Word through preaching and many other ways.

We do this as we work together as a congregation.  The elders serve the congregation by leading, and the deacons serve the congregation by serving (H.B. Charles Jr).

We seek to grow together as Christ-followers through discipleship and discipline.

Let's begin by looking at what worship is not, with a look at the Pharisees.

Why did Jesus reject the worship of the Pharisees?

"Jesus rejects the worship of the Pharisees, saying their worship was futile because they were teaching their doctrines rather than God’s doctrines. They were worshiping according to their will rather than His will."  (The Regulative Principle of Worship by Banner of Truth)

Read Matthew 23 for reasons why Jesus rejected the Pharisees.

In what ways do people “worship” incorrectly?

Selfishness is the primary way people "worship" incorrectly.  While the idea of entertainment-focused, attractional, seeker churches might come to mind, we must carefully evaluate our motives.  If the church gathering time must be the way I like it, we are moving towards or steeped in selfishness.   

Another path to incorrect worship is focusing on minor rather than major ones. 

How are we to worship God?

Trinity's website says, "We believe that our greatest goal is God’s pleasure, not our own.  We invite you to worship with us.  As we study the Bible, God’s Word, we are challenged and encouraged in our relationship with Him and each other."

 

Committing to other believers - Meaningful Membership. 

Looking to the Bible as our guide - the Regulative Principle - The Bible & the Church.  “The acceptable way of worshiping the true God is instituted by himself and limited by his own revealed will” (Westminster Confession of Faith 21.1).

Preaching and living out the preaching of God's Word - Preaching & the Church.  Preaching in which the text's meaning is the sermon's point. 

Singing the Bible - Standards for Edification through Music.  Questions to ask about the songs we sing: 

1.     Is the song biblically accurate?  

2.     Is the song God/Christ-focused?

3.     Is the song clear?

4.     Does the song reflect the breadth of Biblical expression?

5.     Is the song singable by the congregation?

6.     Does it bring unity to the church?  Remember, unity does not mean conformity.

Praying the Bible—Praying & the Church - Prayer is not one of many ministries.  Pray, a dependence on God, should be part of EVERYTHING the church does.  While we should pray for physical needs, the church's prayers should focus on spiritual growth and salvation.

Seeing the Bible in the two sacraments of the church, baptism and the Lord’s Supper (Matt. 28:19; Acts 2:38–39; 1 Cor. 11:23–26; Col. 2:11–12)

An Additional Resource:  

Book:  God Made Me for Worship. It is an excellent resource for helping parents talk to their children about the church gathering for worship.

Website:  10 Reasons Why the Church Gathers 

As Christians, we should all desire to gather with one another as often as possible. As motivation, here are ten reasons why gathering regularly with the church is essential:

1. To obey God’s command (Heb. 10:23-25).
2. To be equipped for ministry work (Eph. 4:11-14).
3. To have our minds renewed through preaching the Word (Rom. 12:1-2).
4. To employ our spiritual gifts to benefit the church (1 Cor. 12).
5. To evangelize the watching world through our love for one another (John 13:35).
6. To be held accountable by other mature brothers and sisters in the Lord (Acts 18:24-26).
7. To be discipled by older, godly men and women (Titus 2:2-6).
8. To ease the mind of your shepherd so he is not worrying about your soul (Heb. 13:17).
9. To grow in our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as we are taught His Word (1 Pet. 2:2).
10. To be encouraged to persevere in the faith by other believers (Heb. 3:12-14)

Discipline & the Church WATC

This title could seem scary if you have an incorrect view of discipline.

That is discipline = punishment. 

Biblical church discipline is not focused on punishment.

It is meant for spiritual growth and restoration.  

It involves building relationships with your church family, overlooking what can be forgotten, calling out sin, calling people to repentance, and glorifying our Holy God.

There should be discipleship and relationship before what is often thought of as church discipline.

Suppose you think about some of the lessons we have covered. In that case, they are connected to this truth:  meaningful membership, intentional relationship, prayer for one another, thinking Biblically, and the importance of leadership (congregational and elders).

The misconception of church discipline is that the goal is to kick people out, and it begins by calling out sin before the entire church body.ck people out

The reality of church discipline is a desire for holy, sanctified living, godly relationships, and restoration.  Matthew 18 discipline needs to be done with care, caution, wisdom, love, and a DESIRE TO GLORIFY GOD.

We need the whole church to be brought into the discipline process because the entire church brought the individual into the membership. 

Remember the keywords we have used in the previous lessons: submission, unity, and harmony.

Is church discipline biblical?  HERE is a list of passages that share the reason for and importance of church discipline.

• 2 Corinthians 2:6
• Galatians 6:1
• Ephesians 5:11
• 1 Thessalonians 5:14
• 2 Thessalonians 3:6 – 15
• 1 Timothy 5:19 – 20
•  2 Timothy 3:2 – 5
• Titus 3:10
• Hebrews 12:11
• Matthew 18:15 -17
• 1 Corinthians 5

 What is the difference between discipline in Matthew 18 and 1 Corinthians 5

Here are some thoughts from Is It Loving to Practice Church Discipline? by Jonathan Leeman

Question:  What does removing a person from membership mean?

Answer:  A church is no longer willing to affirm that a person is a Christian.

“Removal is not an absolute ‘yes’ or ‘no’ in response to someone’s profession of faith. It is a removal of the ‘yes.”

 Question:  What sin leads to public discipline?

 Answer:  Outward, Significant, and Unrepentant

 A resource to check out is www.9marks.org/article/church-discipline-primer

The last class is the Gathering of the Church next week (11/19).

For every We Are the Church lesson, click HERE.